Collected Poems

Kenneth Allott was born in Glamorgan and educated in Newcastle and Oxford. Widely regarded as one of the most promising poets of the late Thirties, he published just two volumes in his lifetime, Poems (Hogarth Press, 1938) and The Ventriloquist’s Doll (The Cresset Press, 1942). A posthumous Collected Poems (Secker & Warburg, 1975) gathered his earlier publications with a selection of unpublished work, edited by Miriam Allott and Roy Fuller. In Michael Murphy’s new annotated edition of the Collected Poems all Allot’s previously published work is combined with eighteen new poems, some of which have only recently come to light, the whole collection is introduced and annotated by Murphy and now represents the most complete picture of one of the UK’s most compelling war time poets.

Allott held a position at Liverpool University from 1948 until the time of his death in 1973. Allott’s wife succeeded him as Chair in Modern English, and in 1978 established the Kenneth Allott Lecture in Poetry. This Collected Poems is published in 2008, the thirtieth anniversary of the Lecture and the year in which Liverpool is designated the European Capital of Culture.

Table of contents

Acknowledgements
Introduction
Note on the Text
POEMS (1938)
Men Walk Upright
Lament for a Cricket Eleven
Any Point on the Circumference
Sunday Excursion
The Statue
The Museum
Gnomic Verses
Lovers We Need
Offering
Request
Historical Grimace
Quicksilver
Pins and Needles
To Die Clean
Privacy
End of a Year
Never and Ever
Summer
Lullaby
Barometer
Azrael
Parable
Heroes and Hero Worship
Municipal Myth
The Plutocrats
Fête Champêtre
Exodus
Memento Mori
Prize for Good Conduct
Patch
The Watchman
The Professor
The Infinite Regress
Calenture
Aunt Sally Speaks
THE VENTRILOQUIST’S DOLL (1943)
Against the Clock
The Children
Love in the Suburbs
Love and Herbert Spencer
Christmas After Munich
Ode in Wartime
The Ventriloquist’s Doll
Wedding Anniversary
The Medium
Morning and Evening
Ragnarok
Two Ages
Feast of Saint Swithin
Steering Line
Speech from a Play
The Memory of Yeats
The Map
Blackout
People are Real
City Nocturne
Elegy
The Situation
Out of the Dream
UNCOLLECTED POEMS
Barking
Lake of Darkness
Patches on an Old Coat
Legend of a Good Woman
Lost Time
Poseuse
Farewell in the Afternoon
Week-end Guest
Dialogue of One
Hallow’een
Statement of Fact
Poem
Invocation
Signs
Valediction
Quicksilver
Cheshire Cat
Departure Platform
‘The Inconsequence of the Old Collecting Ferns …’
Moon in November
For Action?:?This Day
Late Augustan
Typed with Two Fingers
Fable
Song
‘To Be Old and Feel Nothing …’
Sunday 3 a.m.
Song
February
Before Breakfast
‘One Pain Cries in All Ages …’
‘Words Are Not Subtle Enough To Say How It Is …’
Lilies of the Colne Valley
‘He Could Not Sleep …’
Notes